The invention relates to a fret for the fingerboard of plucked stringed instruments, in particular, guitars, with a metal body attached to the fingerboard.
The known frets of this kind consist of metal throughout. To produce a tone of a certain pitch on the instrument, the string is pressed downwardly with the finger against the fingerboard as closely as possible to the fret so that the string comes to rest against the upper metal edge of the fret.
Recent research indicates that if the string is not pressed immediately adjacent to the fret, but at some distance away, it is not immovably fixed at the fret edge, but moves back and forth on the smooth, flat edge while it vibrates. This may impair the characteristic sound of the tone in question and result in the unpleasant, so-called "whirr" or "whizz" effect. Since it is not possible to press the string immediately adjacent to the fret on account of the anatomical structure of the human hand, particularly in difficult finger positions, this whirring or whizzing of the string and the tone produced by it has heretofore had to be tolerated. In the course of time, the frets become worn down by the vibrating strings and must be renewed. This is a complicated procedure.